Constitution is being misread on Obamacare

In March of 2010, then-House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. John Conyers of Michigan told CNS News that the "good and welfare clause" in the Constitution gives Congress the authority to force individuals to buy health insurance which is required in the healthcare bill known as Obamacare. You might be surprised to know that most in government believe that they can pass any law and provide any program based on this clause and have done so for over 80 years. The trouble is, there is no "good and welfare clause" in the Constitution.

They site Article One, Section Eight of the U.S. Constitution, which in part gives Congress the power to lay and collect taxes and excises, to pay debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts, and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States ?..the article goes on to enumerate additional powers.

Constitutional lawyer and historian Robert Natelson states, "The General Welfare Clause found in this article did not confer on Congress any power. It was a limitation on the taxing power granted by the same clause. The current belief that the general welfare clause grants Congress power to spend for almost any purpose is based largely on a misunderstanding of 18thcentury English."

One early and proper reading of the Constitution was in 1854 when the 14th president, Benjamin Franklin Pearce, was presented a bill to have the federal government provide lands to the several states for the housing and care for the mentally insane. President Pearce vetoed the bill stating that while he was sympathetic to the cause, he found no authority in the Constitution that would allow the federal government to pass such a law.

However, since 1933 and the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt, law-makers and presidents have used this misreading to develop thousands of programs it was never meant to provide.

Now the national government is so massive, so out of scale, so intrusive in our lives, and so far in debt that they are imposing this "healthcare" tax scheme to support it.

ADVERTISEMENT

ADVERTISEMENT

ADVERTISEMENT

Email this article

Constitution is being misread on Obamacare

In March of 2010, then-House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. John Conyers of Michigan told CNS News that the '